AhahahhahahaWell, this may sound like a tangent, but I think it touches on some secondary topics here:
Playing for novelty, as a priority, poisons one's mind and greatly limits their potential to say anything of value. Someone who treats their many videogames as a buffet should be dismissed out of hand in any semi-serious discussion (any thread where a good poster contributes and isn't just fucking around).
I think it is commonly overlooked that videogames require a form of discipline (or conditions which force it) to get the most out of them. In a world where people can hoard a thousand F2P/cheap steam/etc. games and fill up their emulator folders (with options to breeze through these games no less), it is all too easy for passion to be replaced by a learned desire to waste time. (And if what I'm saying sounds like something that can be applied outside videogames, that's because it is.)
Some self-titled "core" gamers on GAF don't even realize they are actually treating videogames as "time-wasters" - just like the casuals on phones they may or may not mock. That's not a passion for videogames; that's filling a void in absence of passion - unacknowledged apathy (is it really a surprise GAF has become bigger than gaming for some people?). When you are just trying to waste-time with minimal investment (little patience for any meaningful obstacles), novelty (including false innovation, "art-games", reversing values, etc.) is king, as it is something that can be observed and appreciated even with uninitiated eyes.
Agree with the OP. The lives system needs to either become optional, or get the hell out of gaming. It doesn't belong on any console that doesn't have a coin slot, IMO.
Difficulty is about making a task hard to complete, not telling a person that after X number of goes they won't be allowed to try anymore.
If you want to make your game challenging, make it challenging. Don't arbitrarily force me to replay sections I've already completed because you can't let go of a mechanic that became irrelevant two decades ago.
Ahahahhahaha
You're championing the basest and most pedestrian form of motivator in games, call digital sports meaningful and think others don't understand the medium. Classic.
Said no literary, music or film critic ever. But I guess if games are to remain in the same space as hardware appliances, then sure.If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Said no literary, music or film critic ever. But I guess if games are to remain in the same space as hardware appliances, then sure.
Let's agree to disagree.games certainly have more in common with machines than they do with music, film, etc
Well it's as I implied before. If your game is truly, legitimately good and fun to play, then replaying already completed segments won't be tedious. It'll be fun. Because the game is good.
Ahahahhahaha
You're championing the basest and most pedestrian form of motivator in games, call digital sports meaningful and think others don't understand the medium. Classic.
Also another thing I don't get is when I read reviews complaining about save points in RPGs. I'm completely cool with them. I do like games that have a save-anywhere feature, but there is a certain kind of challenge when you are playing an RPG that has save points located strategically so that you concern yourself with staying alive/item usage until you can reach it. That being said, there's still bad design choices that can be made with this old-school system, but I have no problem with it.
Difficulty is about making a task hard to complete, not telling a person that after X number of goes they won't be allowed to try anymore.
If you want to make your game challenging, make it challenging. Don't arbitrarily force me to replay sections I've already completed because you can't let go of a mechanic that became irrelevant two decades ago.
i always get a kick out of the "i'm a grown man and don't have time for hard/time consuming games" posts. as a full time university student with a job who has very little time to myself, games with excessive checkpointing and no punishment for failure may be easier to get into and complete, but completion feels every bit as hollow as they did when i didn't have a combined 6 hours of game time a week.
That kind of logic led to checkpoint-filled games in which you can use brute force to pass every challenge. You are not asked to master the game's ruleset, you're asked to master the task at hand and move on, like a student who is asked to learn the content of one chapter in his textbook at the time - only to forget it after the test is over.
You do have to factor in that in this system, checkpoints are themselves part of the ruleset. If a game is balanced around that consideration, I see no issue with it.
i always get a kick out of the "i'm a grown man and don't have time for hard/time consuming games" posts. as a full time university student with a job who has very little time to myself, games with excessive checkpointing and no punishment for failure may be easier to get into and complete, but completion feels every bit as hollow as they did when i didn't have a combined 6 hours of game time a week.
playing games that reward consistent and extended performance with reasonable challenge and failure states will always be more satisfying than meaningless bite-sized chunks of content tourism. finishing a game isn't a race so why would your schedule affect the enjoyment of learning a new game? just sounds like excuses to me.
yeah, riposte just demolished this thread.
Yeah, that kind of logic is alien to me as well. Like 6 hours spent beating a short game that barely requires player's participation were more valuable than 6 hours of constantly testing my wits and reflexes on four levels of other game.
I like how this gif basically drives home the point of challenge vs reward better than even a page long essay would.
Skill-based competition = sports.
Fair enough. You are an excellent judge of character, as I'm so trivially, superficially interested in games that it's my earliest memory, studied it, have a PhD in game design from a top 50 world university and am now an assistant professor in game design, but keep telling others how they should understand my casual lack of interest in the medium.
Excellent. I'm not saying my opinion is the only opinion; in fact I repeatedly said people play for different reasons, I'm just saying that this 'only people that play for challenge are interested in games' is a demonstrably bogus assertion.My best friend is a full-time tenured professor in Game Design and I showed him Riposte's post last night when we were having drinks while playing Shadows over Mystara and went on to bemoan the state of current games.
It's your opinion, yes, but it's not a very good one IMO. This is discrediting the history of the industry, countless classics and genres.Agree with the OP. The lives system needs to either become optional, or get the hell out of gaming. It doesn't belong on any console that doesn't have a coin slot, IMO.
I recall reading an interesting observation about the differences between the early Wizardry titles and the early Might & Magic titles along these lines which I think reflects a difference in philosophy which ties in to the central theme of this thread. Both games are old enough that save-anywhere really wasn't an option, but - along a similar theme - there were notable differences in how the two games approached regenerating resources (HP, SP) combined with the nature of combat.
Might and Magic, each individual fight is potentially dangerous unless you're reasonably overlevelled; there's usually going to be mechanics that can wipe out your characters if you're not suitably careful to plan around them. You can expect to use up significant amounts of resources in any given fight. However, you can rest in most places in the environment, and doing so removes most status ailments and fully recharges health and mana; each fight will generally be approached with a full set of resources.
In Wizardry, however, the individual fights aren't really all that unpleasant. A nasty status element here, an occasional big hit there, but in general a fully-powered team will have little difficulty with a fight. However, you can't regenerate resources - in general - unless you're in a town. In other words, Wizardry is balanced around the accumulation of fights.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with either approach, fundamentally. Both require different skills, both are valid approaches to game design - and ultimately, both have benefits and pitfalls.
More importantly - and I need to highlight this - there's nothing inherently more noble about beating a game designed around conquering the accumulation of challenge and managing resources than there is about beating a game designed around conquering individual tailored challenges. Or indeed vice-versa!
Of course, there's a slightly reductio ad absurdum argument to that: If that's the case, what's the point of the game ever making more content than that fun section!
I think players do need *some* variety over time. When you've perfected a sequence, you end up just going through the motions every single time - and indeed, if you slip up, you may consider that you should restart *immediately* so you don't get end up in the troublesome selection without maximised resources. Maybe the game could have some random elements in that sequence so the player needs to vary their approach and adapt - but then there's a subsequent issue of the player recognising a setup that isn't favourable to them from the outset and resetting until they get one that suits them (How many times have you restarted Hotline Miami because the first enemy doesn't have a gun, for instance?)
I think part of this is an odd piece of player psychology that I've observed in many players: If they're having difficulty with one piece of content, the default mental response is a feeling that they need to min/max to conquer it. Now, better players can - and perhaps should - scoff at that - playing better is more effective than maximising resources - but it's important to note that maximising resources is a visible and achievable goal, while simply playing better is a slightly nebulous concept.
I think it's worth having an interlude here, too, to mention games where death is, I would argue, *too* negative. Megaman, as mentioned elsewhere, I'd say is one - the difference in power between a player with full weapon power and one with depleted weapon power is *massive* in a boss environment. Gradius is another good example, I think; it's easy to get power-ups in early levels and a fully powered-up Vic Viper is well-equipped to survive in later levels for a player who is even relatively poor - but as soon as the player loses one life, suddenly he's in an extremely hostile environment with only a basic speed-up to hand and the simplest weapon - and will generally lose his other lives in quick succession.
I'm thinking more of this from a player psychology and frustration standpoint; I don't think it's right to 'solve' this by demanding that all players view games with the same philosophy. I think there does need to be reasonable choice so players can play the game in a way that suits them. By all means lock higher rewards behind better play, of course; this setup shouldn't restrict players from being able to improve. I've not yet played it, but it does sound like Bayonetta has the right idea.
I recall reading an interesting observation about the differences between the early Wizardry titles and the early Might & Magic titles along these lines which I think reflects a difference in philosophy which ties in to the central theme of this thread. Both games are old enough that save-anywhere really wasn't an option, but - along a similar theme - there were notable differences in how the two games approached regenerating resources (HP, SP) combined with the nature of combat.
Might and Magic, each individual fight is potentially dangerous unless you're reasonably overlevelled; there's usually going to be mechanics that can wipe out your characters if you're not suitably careful to plan around them. You can expect to use up significant amounts of resources in any given fight. However, you can rest in most places in the environment, and doing so removes most status ailments and fully recharges health and mana; each fight will generally be approached with a full set of resources.
In Wizardry, however, the individual fights aren't really all that unpleasant. A nasty status element here, an occasional big hit there, but in general a fully-powered team will have little difficulty with a fight. However, you can't regenerate resources - in general - unless you're in a town. In other words, Wizardry is balanced around the accumulation of fights.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with either approach, fundamentally. Both require different skills, both are valid approaches to game design - and ultimately, both have benefits and pitfalls.
More importantly - and I need to highlight this - there's nothing inherently more noble about beating a game designed around conquering the accumulation of challenge and managing resources than there is about beating a game designed around conquering individual tailored challenges. Or indeed vice-versa!
Yeah, that kind of logic is alien to me as well. Like 6 hours spent beating a short game that barely requires player's participation were more valuable than 6 hours of constantly testing my wits and reflexes on four levels of other game.
A life system rewards good players who don't use them. A life system punishes bad players who need to use them. They cater to the reverse audience.
A life system is just a set of requirements for completing a certain part of the game, and a good player is one who learns to work within those limitations. The negative reinforcement part of things is an incentive for bad players to get good.
How come no one ever compares video games to board games like Monopoly, Sorry, Trouble, etc. or card games like UNO, Spades, Freecell, or Poker or something like that? Are you one of those people who prefer to play with house rules than the original rules of a game like that?Said no literary, music or film critic ever. But I guess if games are to remain in the same space as hardware appliances, then sure.
It's just that people enjoy games for different reasons. Some play to be challenged, to practice and master the mechanics etc.
Others like me enjoy them as basically interactive movies. Stories and audio/visual experiences that can be more immersive than a movie due to being interactive.
I don't mind a little challenge, some puzzles to figure out etc., but I don't have the time or patience to master hard boss fights or keep replaying long sections due to a game lacking frequent checkpoints etc.
That said, there is plenty of room out there for both types of games. I can play the games like Gears, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Last of Us, Halo, Skyrim etc. for story/experience. Others can play stuff like DMC or Ninja Gaiden and play the types of games I listed on higher difficulties.
Not sure what you mean by the last sentence, but sure. Lots of people compare games to board games, especially in terms of economies. However, video games are much bigger than regular boardgames in terms of complex emotions they can engender (presence, cognitive dissonance, persuasion through procedural rhetoric etc), so that would be a disservice to the medium. As would talking about boardgames without acknowledging the rich cocreative social interplay that they are vehicles towards.How come no one ever compares video games to board games like Monopoly, Sorry, Trouble, etc. or card games like UNO, Spades, Freecell, or Poker or something like that? Are you one of those people who prefer to play with house rules than the original rules of a game like that?
Because you do understand at the end of the day, you're playing a game and each game has its own rules and regulations right?
Fwiw I'm not arguing otherwise. Although I do feel there should be inherently better mechanisms than limited continues and redoing large sections, in the end opinions are like assholes.This attitude I like better. He acknowledges that he may not be into more skill oriented games, but doesn't wish to drive them away, instead, he sticks to the games he feels cater to him.
I find it selfish that people want to remove a specific game design out of gaming completely. The world does not revolve around anyone and anyone's specific taste. There are plenty of games that suit your taste better, play those instead. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having preference, but there is a problem with wanting to remove a specific game design from everyone that enjoys it.
And this is what I don't get. To me, the incentive to get better is the fact that you're losing and can't progress. I don't see why to you need anymore negative reinforcement past that.This.
I was really freaking horrible at Mega Man when I first played it. The way the games were designed help me motivate and overcome the challenges. I eventually got good at the games because the game actually encourages me so. This is why Mega Man is ultimately my favorite gaming franchise, the gameplay design strikes a perfect balance with difficulty when done right. It also helps that the levels are generally short instead of being lengthy, so if I were to Game Over, I'd lose like... 2 to 3 minutes worth of gameplay?
If I get a Game Over and respawn at the last checkpoint, I wouldn't have as much incentive to improve my skills as I do now. There's no fun in that.
And this is what I don't get. To me, the incentive to get better is the fact that you're losing and can't progress. I don't see why to you need anymore negative reinforcement past that.
Although I generally like the difficulty of Megaman, I found there to be too many 'cheap shots'. Enemies jumping out of pits without warning as you jump over them etc. It's a bit like jump scares; they're effective but feel dumb. Well I feel the same about many implementations of limited lives/continues.Because Mega Man games are made to test your skills at platforming. You can progress when you figure out how to overcome the challenges. It's seriously less satisfying making it easier.
Although I generally like the difficulty of Megaman, I found there to be too many 'cheap shots'. Enemies jumping out of pits without warning as you jump over them etc. It's a bit like jump scares; they're effective but feel dumb. Well I feel the same about many implementations of limited lives/continues.
Although I generally like the difficulty of Megaman, I found there to be too many 'cheap shots'. Enemies jumping out of pits without warning as you jump over them etc. It's a bit like jump scares; they're effective but feel dumb.
In the end, I think it depends on the type of game. Not every game benefits from lives/continues and not every game benefits without them either.Well I feel the same about many implementations of limited lives/continues.
After 10 years and many tries I am finally getting into Devil May Cry. Being patient and looking at patterns is actually clicking and I made further than I ever had. Everything is cool except for one thing.
What kind of shit for brains thought limited continues and making you start a mission all the way over was a good idea?
It's the boss that's kicking my ass, don't waste my time and make me run through the entire level of respawning enemies for that!
Do the sequels get rid of this junk?
House rules are when players decide to make exceptions, or use their own set of rules as opposed to the standard/universal rules to play the game. [C'mon man you study game design.]Not sure what you mean by the last sentence, but sure. Lots of people compare games to board games, especially in terms of economies. However, video games are much bigger than regular boardgames in terms of complex emotions they can engender (presence, cognitive dissonance, persuasion through procedural rhetoric etc), so that would be a disservice to the medium. As would talking about boardgames without acknowledging the rich cocreative social interplay that they are vehicles towards.
Fwiw I'm not arguing otherwise. Although I do feel there should be inherently better mechanisms than limited continues and redoing large sections, in the end opinions are like assholes.
If people here are stating they like that stuff then that's the use of them justified.
Look at this scrub-ass OP